Barbara_E._Mundy]_The_Death_of_Aztec_Tenochtitlan

90 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy

accompanied by glosses in Nahuatl (see table 4.1). Tiny
dotted lines were the artist’s (or perhaps the copyist’s) con-
vention to show that one class of good extended into sev-
eral market spaces; for instance, the small hat (labeled with
the Spanish word sombrero) has two dotted lines attaching
it to spaces below it to show that hats were sold in three
adjacent locales. In figure 4.12, the stalls with glyphs are
unshaded and numbered to correspond to table 4.1; stalls
connected by dotted lines are numbered correspondingly,
but shaded. Most foodstuffs were found on the eastern side
of the market, the left half of this map; notable among them
are the four stalls for the meat sellers (nacanamacaque) and
three stalls for fishmongers (michnamacaque). The former
underscores the abundance of meat in the indigenous diet
after the great plains of pasture, virgin until the arrival of
the Spaniards, were turned over to raise sheep and cattle.

These great bounties of meat in the sixteenth century led

to the ecological devastation that followed in the centuries

thereafter. 55 Their location on this side of the tianguis made

sense in the larger layout of the city, because it put them

in proximity to the slaughterhouses where animals were

butchered, which lay yet farther to the east in the city, so

these stalls were the closest to their suppliers. While we

know that poultry was a frequently demanded tribute item

and sold at the market, only one glyph for a duck appears;

the scarcity of spaces for poultry vendors may simply be

due to the poor state of preservation of the original map at

the time it was copied.

While it boasted an abundance of foods—chilies, chia,

T E C P A N

Portales de Tejada

1

3

9

14 15

14 9

13

5

6

2

14

26

21

22

27

13

13

13

38

26 31 32

32

43

48

39 40

33 34

45

34 34

49

44

7

16 17

17

47

42

36 37

41

35

23 24

28 29 30

25

20

12

11 11

18 19

10

8

4

35

35

North toward

San Francisco

figuRe 4.12. Diagram of the Tianguis of Mexico, after Ms. Mexicain

106b. Numbers correspond to table 4.1. By Olga Vanegas.